you shine so bright it's insane
by Lelderkin
Summary: Five times Caroline and Tyler kissed, and the one time they didn't. "He smiles, as he always seems to when she's laughing." Oneshot. Mostly pre-series.


_summary: _Five times Caroline and Tyler kissed, and the one time they didn't. "He smiles again, as he always seems to when she's laughing."

_title: _"Now I feel your name, it's coursing through my veins. You shine so bright it's insane, you put the sun to shame." ~Lullaby, by The Spill Canvas

_note:_ Because before TVD comes back, I need a little Caroline/Tyler tribute. I have this terrible feeling that they aren't going to be reunited, so I basically had to write this. Not the most unique of formats but always fun to play with! :D

* * *

><p><em>one.<em>

She's five and they're in the sandbox together, and she is stepping on his sandcastles because they're better than hers.

He gets angry with her and eventually she's tired of ruining his masterpieces. So she plops down and says, "Hey, I did something real fun last week."

Out of the blue.

It's not so much that she wants to kiss _him_ – it was just that kissing Mark Lieberman and having her dad take a picture of it was something that won her his full attention.

(She'll never stop striving for that.)

So she tells him that all he has to do is shut his eyes and she'll do the rest of the work.

He's nervous, because he knows what kind of girl she is, but she ignores his stream of, "I don't know if this is such a good idea, I don't know what you're doing right now, this is a little weird, what are you gonna do?"

Instead she just presses her face to his.

It's her second-ever kiss and his first and neither of them like it very much. When it's over she looks around, but her daddy is sitting on a bench talking to Carol Lockwood, smiling in that charming way of his and not paying her any attention.

She crosses her arms and says, "Thanks for nothing."

* * *

><p><em>two.<em>

She's nine and they're at a classmate's older sister's wedding. It's the two of them, because Elena took Matt, Jeremy, and Vicki on a hunt for the magical Kerbobble, but Caroline is too old to believe in Elena's games anymore and Tyler doesn't like how Matt ignores him when he's around Elena, so the two of them lodge a protest by staying behind.

"This is bo-ring," she says, blowing all her breath out in a way that makes her blunt bangs flutter.

"What's a Kerbobble, anyway?" he asks, and she thinks he might seriously want to know. She rolls her eyes exaggeratedly.

"Tyler. Kerbobbles don't exist. Elena is being stupid. That's all."

"Hello, Caroline," Mr. Lockwood says pleasantly, joining them at the table before his son can respond.

"Hi, Mr. Lockwood," she answers unenthusiastically.

"How's it going over here at the kid table?" he asks.

She holds herself tall. "I'm too old for the kid table."

"Well, you're too young for the adult table!" he says, trying to play the part of the jovial father. She just rolls her eyes again.

(She'll never fit anywhere.)

"Tyler, why don't you entertain Caroline?"

"She's mean!" he answers, and she shoots him a glare. "See?"

"Tyler! Don't say that about someone! Why don't the two of you go and dance, now." It's not really a question, and Mr. Lockwood shoos them onto the crowded floor.

People part for the "adorable kids", who awkwardly part their arms around each other. "I can't believe I have to dance with _you_," she says, her face screwed up in disgust.

"Do you think I want to be dancing with _you_?" he returns.

"Well, you should. I am a pretty girl wearing a pretty dress."

He groans. "Your dress is scratchy." He's holding a bit of the fabric between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing it experimentally.

Unexpectedly, she giggles. "Actually, yeah. It is scratchy."

He seems surprised, and then he smiles at her. "Why are you wearing it, then?"

"My dad said it was nice," she answers.

"What did your mom say?"

She frowns and turns away. "Nothing," she mumbles. She doesn't like where this conversation is going.

"Anyway, that tie looks uncomfortable."

It does. It is a revolting shade of puke-green, and it seems almost as though it's choking him.

He looks down at it, thinking. Then all of a sudden he's pulling on her hand and leading her off the dance floor, out the door, down the hall, and into the boy's bathroom.

"Gross!" she says. "I'm not supposed to be in here." She giggles, mostly because it's forbidden.

He smiles again, as he always seems to when she's laughing. "C'mon!" he says, and then he's loosening the tie with nimble fingers.

"What?" she asks, confused and transfixed by the knot he is clumsily undoing.

"Take it off!" he answers. "Why should we have to wear stuff only 'cause our dads want us too? I think we should go back out there – you without the dress, me without the tie, and show them who's boss!"

She likes this plan. She likes being boss. So she tries to pull her dress over her head, but she's having difficulties. He reaches over, and with a surprisingly soft touch, helps her slither out of it. Then she's standing in front of him, wearing white tights and a white lacy undershirt.

He grins. "Perfect. Now you're a pretty girl _not_ wearing a pretty dress."

And she likes this comment so much, she leans forward and pecks him on the cheek as a thank you.

The redness glowing on his face when she pulls away is reward enough.

* * *

><p><em>three.<em>

She's thirteen and it's their last day of middle school. She's wandering through the halls, a weird sort of melancholy in her because she'll never really do this again. She's not as eager to leave as everyone else – in the years that follow, people will talk about middle school like it was hell, but she has always been the queen, the beloved monarch ordering her subjects around.

She loved middle school, and now it's all over and she's passing classroom after classroom that she'll never enter again.

She wonders if she'll be as popular in high school. She wonders if the older kids will hate her. She wonders how many more times she'll be able to lose to Elena until she breaks. _Most Likeable..._she's always been under the impression that Elena Bitch Gilbert isn't all that likeable, but apparently she's the only one.

"Almost a unanimous vote," the principal had announced at the farewell assembly with a big smile. "Only four people voted for someone else. It seems the eighth grade is absolutely _positive_ that Most Likeable belongs to...Miss Elena Gilbert!"

Suddenly she's reached her locker and she slides down it, her back scraping against the lock on the way to the floor. So much has happened here – gossip sessions before school started, quick checks in her mirror before heading to the classes she shared with Luke Gardener, _Best Smile..._the day she found out her father was leaving her mother and she cried into Bonnie's shoulder to the stares of the passing students...

She feels tears prick her eyes once again, and she doesn't know if it's because she feels like _Most Unlikeable_ or because she'll miss this place so much, but suddenly her head is in her knees and wetness is streaking down her face and completely ruining her mascara.

(She's always ruining things.)

She doesn't know how long she sits there crying when she feels a soft, soft hand on her shoulder – terrified to touch her yet compassionate enough to try.

She looks up through bloodshot eyes and there he is, staring at her with a mix of confusion and worry on his tanned face.

He doesn't ask anything stupid like, "Are you okay?" because it's very, very clear that she isn't. He just murmurs, "May I?"

And then he's next to her, his arm around her, and her face is pressed into his neck.

They don't do this often, but once he found her crying in the bathroom at someone's birthday party after the divorce had just been finalized and ever since he's known just what to say to comfort her.

When it's over she wipes her eyes and clears her throat. "I - "

"It's okay, Care," he says, carefully extricating his arm. He stands and turns, about to leave, but she hurries to follow, puts her hand on his shoulder.

"Tyler. Thank you," she says, and then she places the softest, fastest kiss she's ever given in her middle school career onto his lips.

Before he has a chance to react, she's down the hall and out the door, leaving him dumbfounded in her wake.

* * *

><p><em>four.<em>

She's fifteen and it turns out high school isn't so bad after all. There are so many new people – boys – and the classes aren't too hard and things are looking okay.

And then the Homecoming Dance is coming up fast – October twenty-third, and _everyone _has a date. Elena is going with Matt, her brand-new "serious" boyfriend. Bonnie was asked by Jimmy Loomos, who gave her a rose and kissed her hand while asking. Caroline thinks it's sort of tacky, but Bonnie melts.

"You can't go _alone_," Elena says at one of their sleepovers. "I'll be with Matt the whole night, and I bet Jimmy and Bonnie will be making out in the corner - " she's cut off with a squeal from Bonnie but keeps talking - "so you'll be awkwardly standing by the punch bowl looking lame."

"Sensitive, Elena," Bonnie says, rolling her eyes. Caroline hides her hurt.

(She's always hiding the truth from these two.)

"Well, who should I ask?" She's just broken up with her summer boyfriend, the gorgeous but boring Luke Gardener, and she knows if she gets a new boyfriend too soon she'll be "Freshman Slut," which is probably the worst name they can give you.

Elena sighs. "You shouldn't have broken up with Luke till _after_ the dance," she says, like Caroline has made some fatal mistake. "I'll ask Matt who you should ask."

Her phone buzzes a second later, and she giggles. "Matt thinks you should ask _Tyler!_"

Bonnie smiles, but Caroline remains emotionless. "Why is that so funny?"

Elena falters. "I don't know – just...Tyler is so..._Tyler. _You know?"

Caroline frowns.

"_I _think he's a douche," Bonnie says primly, beginning to file her nails.

"You just don't know him like I do," says Caroline, because her parents have been friends with his forever, so they've known each other forever.

Elena raises an eyebrow at Bonnie, who raises one back. Caroline hates when they do that stupid best-friend-read-my-mind thing, but there's really no way she can protest it. "So ask him," they say together.

She glares at them but whips out her phone, just to show that she's not chicken. "Hi, Tyler," she says when he picks up.

"Caroline? What the hell?"

"Yeah, sorry, I know we don't talk on the phone that much, and this is kind of random, but..."

"Oh God," he groans, and she realizes she must have woken him up. "You're going to ask me to Homecoming."

"Well, you need a date, and I need a date, and since Matt and Elena are together now..."

"It makes sense for you and me to go together? C'mon, Care, you know I don't dance."

"It doesn't matter. I just need you to take pictures with your arms around my waist, buy me a corsage, make an appearance, and tell people you went with me. Then you can go smoke pot with your buddies or whatever you do on Saturday nights."

She hears his frown through the phone lines – maybe he's obvious, or maybe she just knows every nuance of his voice – when he says, "Fine. But you owe me."

She scoffs. "I'm doing you the favor. Now go get your beauty rest."

She snaps the phone shut before he can respond and grins triumphantly at her friends, who are looking at her with awe-filled eyes. They've always admired her bravery when it comes to the opposite sex.

But she isn't so sure she made the right choice when he shows up at her house a week later with a gorgeous rose corsage his mother must have picked out. She lets him in and he looks around tiredly. "I _so_ have better things to do right now," he says, and she rolls her eyes.

"Please. You're going to Homecoming with a living, breathing girl – what more do you need?"

"Are you offering? Because I could use a beer."

She ignores this and leads him in front of the fireplace, where her father and his boyfriend are snapping pictures of all her friends.

Suddenly he's surprising her by leaning close and whispering, "You look nice. Did your dad make you wear this?" And he's pinching the fabric of her dress between his fingers and smiling a secret smile at her that she can't help but return.

She fingers his tie and says, "I don't know, did your dad make you wear this?"

That's the only special moment the two share all night, and then Vicki is driving them all home even though technically you're supposed to only drive family for the year after you get your license, and Vicki's had hers for about a month.

Caroline's exhausted from faking like she's happy all night, and her feet ache. She leans her head on Tyler's shoulder and shuts her eyes. "Wake me up when this night is over," she mumbles, and she feels the gentle rumble of his laugh.

"Should have asked Luke Pansy Gardener," he murmurs into her hair, a sort of softness to his teasing that she knows means no one else can hear them.

"And missed out on this night of torturing you? No, thank you," she says, and he laughs again.

When they arrive at her house he walks her to her door because Matt walked Elena to hers, and when they're standing on her front stoop he leans forward and brushes a kiss along her cheekbone.

"Thanks for tonight, Tyler," she says. "You help me keep up the lie."

And then he reaches forward and he's hugging her, something they've probably never done, and it's so much better than that little cheek-kiss that she feels herself melting into his arms.

"Bye, Care," he says, and then it's over.

* * *

><p><em>five.<em>

The last time is so fleeting it's hard to believe she even remembers it, but she does.

Secretly she wonders if he does too.

He's dating Vicki, and _that_ was such a surprise that it's pushed them even further into the barely-even-friends territory. Elena and Matt are still dating and sometimes Caroline teases Elena that she'll be Tyler's sister-in-law someday, and won't _that_ be fun?

It's Christmas Break and he's calling her for the first time all year. She picks up on the first ring because she's bored and surprised.

"Hey," he says. "Want to go ice skating?"

And it's random but not that odd, because not too many Christmases ago her parents and his parents and the two of them would go to the frozen Prospect Pond and skate and get hot chocolate afterwords and sit in the Lockwoods' living room with their backs to the fire while her father told scary stories and rubbed her mother's feet. She gets a pang, thinking of those memories, but all she says is, "Yeah. I'll be there in half an hour."

She doesn't wait for a reply, she just bounds down to the front hall closet and finds her old ice skates, which miraculously still fit her. She smiles as she looks at them, and she is glad that her mother isn't around to feel nostalgic with her, because that always puts Liz in a bad mood.

(Everything is putting Liz in a bad mood these days, especially her daughter, but Caroline pretends not to notice.)

And then they're both there, skating from opposite ends of the pond toward each other, and then he grabs her hand and pulls her along backwards and she shrieks because she feels like she's ten years old again. She doesn't ask about Vicki and he doesn't ask about her family and there's a sort of simple stillness to the day.

Snowflakes start to fall about twenty minutes in, adding to the already-oversized mounds of snow. She catches some on her tongue and dares him to do the same, but he says he'd rather just watch her, since she's the champion at that. She laughs delightedly and then skates past him, stealing his hat as she goes.

He grabs hers by the pom-pom and makes her start chasing him instead, her hair sticking up from the static electricity and her cheeks flushed with the cold. When she finally tackles him off the ice and into a pile of snow, he rolls on top of her and says, "You can have it back, but only if I get to do this."

And before she can ask what, he brushes her hair from her face and kisses her softly, slowly, with some sort of aching sweetness to it all. And she kisses him back because it's Tyler and he's known her forever and he knows what to say and he took her to Homecoming and he showed her who's boss and he was her second-ever kiss.

Then he pulls away and whispers, "I just thought we should go back to when we were five."

She puts her gloved hand to his cheek and says, "I'm always thanking you."

"Even for this?" he asks, and she nods slowly.

And then he get off of her and extends his hand to help her up. She wipes the snow off her jacket and gives him a sort of sad smile. "I'll see you, Tyler," she says, and he nods almost distractedly.

She already misses him.

* * *

><p><em>the one time they didn't.<em>

She's seventeen and she'll be seventeen for the rest of eternity, and he's lying next to her with a gunshot in his side, completely naked, and there's a blanket over them and the softest couch in the whole house beneath them and his arm around her.

Her head is nestled into his warm chest and his breathing is soft, regular. _Thank you, Caroline._

_I'm always thanking you_, she remembers, and she smiles to know that it's the opposite this time.

And here they are. She has a naked man next to her and no thoughts of sex have entered her mind, not even briefly. She wonders if that means she's growing. She looks up at him and he smiles down at her and he squeezes her tighter.

"I missed you," she says, and her voice breaks.

He rests his chin on her head. "You have no idea how much I missed you."

She's looking up at him again, her face expectant, and he starts to lower his, when suddenly they both stop. Stiffen. Think.

"Let's - "

"- not."

And she finally thinks she's got the whole best-friend-read-my-mind thing going for her with this exquisite boy next to her, and she grins a bigger grin than she thought she could have managed, considering the circumstances.

"Tyler," she says seriously.

He raises his eyebrows in question.

She reaches up and touches his face, traces his lips. "I don't need that to prove anything this time. Not to get attention or show anyone who's boss or thank you or console you after a night of torture or go back in time. I don't need that this time."

He smiles at her and she thinks there might even be some moisture in his eyes. "Then let's not."

She finds his hand and squeezes it, and _not_ feels a million times better than _did._


End file.
